World Leaders Travel
World Leaders Travel is a leading provider of customized and innovative educational travel events worldwide. The company was founded in 1978 as High Country Passage (HCP) by Thomas Peirce in Palo Alto, California. Tom had a lifelong passion for travel and learning, and was one of the pioneers in the field of organization-sponsored educational travel. The company's first commercial tours were small group affairs, focused on anthropology and archaeology and inspired by the peoples and history of Meso, Central, and South America, as well as Southeast Asia.
HCP expanded in 2001 with the addition of Peter Voll Associates, another Bay Area company specializing in educational travel. In 2003, an investment group led by Don Kendall, Jr., acquired the company and further strengthened its place as a leader in the educational travel niche. Building on the success of its World Leaders Symposium brand, HCP transitioned to World Leaders Travel (WLT) in 2009.
World Leaders Travel, now based in San Francisco, offers three types of travel events with a wide range of travelers in mind: Symposiums, Forums, and Legacy tours. Each is built around a prominent leader and a timely and compelling theme, with highlights including a comprehensive educational program, special access, private events, and customized excursions.
Symposiums are led by globally significant and high-profile keynote speakers, experts, and moderators, and generally include multiple countries, expansive themes, small-group excursion options, sponsor-oriented special events, chartered small ships, and 150+ passengers. Symposium destinations and keynote speakers have included Venice and the Dalmatian Coast with Madeleine Albright, China and East Asia with George H.W. Bush, and the Middle East with James Baker.
Forums are characterized by a team of speakers notable in their field; focused educational themes and itineraries; small-group excursion options; travel by ship, land, air, or rail; and 90+ travelers. The inaugural Forum, The Much Too Promised Land: Israel and the Palestinian Authority, includes Middle East policy expert Aaron David Miller, ABC News veteran Sam Donaldson, and a variety of in-country experts on the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Legacy tours celebrate the strengths and mission of each of our travel partners. These customized travel events are led by a celebrated expert selected by our partners, and are based on themes and destinations driven by the experts. They also include various modes of travel and 30+ travelers. Worldwide destinations include locations such as Patagonia, Egypt, India, and South Africa.
World Leaders Travel has operated travel events on every continent, working extensively in the Middle East, India, Southeast Asia, Russia and the Baltic region, the Black Sea, Northern and Southern Africa, Australia and New Zealand, Indonesia, and Central and South America. The company also has expertise in less-visited locales such as Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Iran, and Cuba.
Travel partners include membership organizations such as the American Museum of Natural History, California Academy of Sciences, National Geographic, National Trust for Historic Preservation, and Smithsonian Institution; leading alumni associations such as Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and UC Berkeley; and public affairs organizations such as the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the EastWest Institute, and Foreign Affairs magazine.
